The glibc packages contain the standard C libraries used by multiple programs on the system. These packages contain the standard C and the standard math libraries. Without these two libraries, a Linux system cannot function properly. It was discovered that the glibc dynamic linker/loader did not handle the $ORIGIN dynamic string token set in the LD_AUDIT environment variable securely. A local attacker with write access to a file system containing setuid or setgid binaries could use this flaw to escalate their privileges. Red Hat would like to thank Tavis Ormandy for reporting this issue. All users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch to correct this issue.